Guild Wars 2

I had a debate with a friend which I think I lost. My argument was that the best chances for a smooth dungeon run are those where everyone is running builds balancing damage, control, and support. Jack of all trades, master of none. His argument was that the overall group needs to be balanced, which means some be people specced to mitigate damage through defensive stats, control, and support, while retaining much/most of the aggro, and some specced to do tons of damage, while avoiding aggro. I realize both will work, but which will work smoother (fewer deaths, faster battles)?

The real reason I ask this is because I’m the kind of guy who strives for the “flawless” run, which I realize is a tall order. I made myself believe, since early pre-order beta, that dungeons could be run just as smoothly with and without plate wearers (assuming equal skill). But now I’m starting to question that. Are the smoothest runs those with defensive-specced plate wearers (i.e. tanks)?

No, surprisingly smoother runs include players who are all “supportive builds”. No, I dont mean healing supportive builds but builds that often aid other group members do more damage and survive.

Although the most important part of a smooth run is a group where all 5 party members know to press “T” and single target the exact same mob. Especially in silver rank+ mobs.

Try seeing the difference between a group where only 4 targets 1 mob,and a group where all 5 target the same mob and a group where nobody really targets the same thing and dodge roles everywhere.

The difference is easily felt and seen. Consumables should help cover up lost ground for any dps due to supportive builds. Consumbales are VERY GOOD. Just go open the trading post, and look for lvl 80 consumable foods + potions. You will drool over the extra stats. Good gear is also very good.

I can say for certain right now that running with Guradians (and to a lesser extent Elementalists/Engineers) will make life much easier simply because of how they operate. All can bring extensive healing and support capability to the group without sacrificing much offense. They are force multipliers, increasing the effective health pools of everyone around them to push the odds of success in favor of the party.

From what I’ve seen so far, difference between good and bad group has to do with player skill and the builds they are running. When you choose your skills and traits, instead of asking: How will this benefit me in combat? you shoul ask: How is this skill gonna affect others? And only then look for a way you can use it too (; If you can take a skill that will interupt/negate even 5k AoE or some other that will give you 5% more dmg, it’s not really a choice :P

The game allows you, regardless of your gear type, to complete dungeons. It does not matter if you have all warriors, or all elementalists in your group.

The catch then comes to skill/trait compositions. Youre going to have to have one or more players be teh guys who can soak up damage and get punched in the face. How they do it is up to your group. You may have 3 people chaining their CDs one after another. Its not impossible, just very very hard.

People will opt to find player classes who have natural niches. I.E casters tend to work better as dps then tehy do as tanks, while guardians/wars work better as tanks then dps (respectively). Its not to say you NEED these classes to run a dungeon, but having a split composition of classes makes the necessary skill level to beat the dungeon go down for hte party as a whole.

Can you complete a dungeon with five thieves? Sure. Is it going to be easy? No. Its going to be hard as steel kittens.

To my personal experiance, dungeons have always gone smoothest when people have their builds set up to fill a certain role, but are flexible enough to work in a group and synergize. Meaning, dont pick traits and skills that only benefit your toon alone, but help the group as a whole.

@Eviator

I have to say I’m with you on this. GW2 doesn’t have the Holy Trinity system, so no such thing as all out DPS, Pure support(Healers), Pure defensive(Tanks). I believe having a group with every player spreading out their focus(i.e. Jack of all Trades) is better and more to what GW2 stands for.

Splitting party members to different roles is reliance on the Holy Trinity system and as we can see, is not what the devs intended.

Most important thing whether you are specced for damage or not is your utilities. Choose utilities that make your whole party better. Or that can aid other members of your party when they need aid. Basically in dungeons you need to think of your team. Making 5 ppl get a 5% damage bonus is way better than making yourself get a 10% damage bonus, Making the whole party gain fury, might and vigor every 2,5 minutes is a lot better than having it yourself every 1 minute. I take the warrior examples since I play that in dungeons. But the same can be done by every other class in the game. If you make the party better you win. If all are partially support specced, the run will be a lot smoother, since all can deal damage and will be improved by the party buffs of other team mates.

Smoothest runs I’ve had were with one dedicated support player (banner warrior, elixir engineer, etc..) and a beefy melee (usually a defensive spec guardian) with everyone else being dps.

So far the responses are about 50/50. That it’s not 90/10 is a bummer. I was hoping that GW2 would be different. It’s not the trinity anymore, but many still think dedicated tanks are still needed, thus defensive plate wearers are believed by many to be necessary for a smooth run.

So if my friend wants to play a glass cannon ele and die 25% more than balanced spec characters, I guess he is justified in doing so because he will always look for runs with a tank in them. FWIW, he doesn’t strive for the “flawless” run; success for him is measured only based upon whether we complete the dungeon. He’s perfectly fine graveyard rushing. I guess that means he is not wrong, he’s just not my ideal dungeon buddy.

In my guild we are finishing AC/CM/HotW runs in 30 minutes (really way quicker but delayed to defeat DR…. Anet please fix, we arent exploiting and having to stand around 5-10 minutes on some paths just because we did it quickly is quite boring). A lot of this really depends on the Dungeon and path you are taking, but usually we run balanced builds. At any given time an individual is able to fulfill a role and no one has a specific job.

Thats just how we do it. anyway I am sure playing specialized would be equally as effective but why limit what your character is able to do?

I think the mechanics of the game best support a scenario where every member of the party is running something at least slightly balanced – leaning toward offense, defense, or anything else is fine, but min-maxing and trying to specialize into one narrow niche is generally not.

The game seems to be set up so that the power-versus-cooldown on most support skills is just not enough for one character to handle that role for the entire group, even if you put every single point you can toward increasing the effectiveness of that particular variety of support – but you can typically be 70-80% as effective as the maximum without having to invest anywhere near 70-80% of your available ‘points’ into it, leaving you free to make yourself useful and powerful in more direct ways.
In other words, the ‘marginal utility’ of every point you invest into a given specialization – be it trait points, actual Major traits, Utility skills, or just equipment stats – diminishes as you try to specialize further. And if you accept that that’s the case (you may not, but I think there’s a compelling argument for the idea), then a group becomes stronger as each member generalizes, rather than specializing into a specific role.

Balanced team comps are the best overall. Five glass cannons who have to kite everything put out inferior damage to 3-4 damage builds + 1 tank and/or support.

Soban.3754:

Balanced team comps are the best overall. Five glass cannons who have to kite everything put out inferior damage to 3-4 damage builds + 1 tank and/or support.

4 Glass cannons sure, but not 5 people running builds with survivability and damage. What are you going to do when your 1 tank/support cant keep agro since in dungeons the vast majority of enemies are fought in close spaces with AOE attacks? (Not to mention you cant just hit an enemy and keep them on you like classical MMOs)

Eviator.9746:

So far the responses are about 50/50. That it’s not 90/10 is a bummer. I was hoping that GW2 would be different. It’s not the trinity anymore, but many still think dedicated tanks are still needed, thus defensive plate wearers are believe

The trinity still exists, but heavy doesn’t matter. Thieves and Mesmers are actually very high tier PvE tanks, for example.

Parisalchuk.9230:

4 Glass cannons sure, but not 5 people running builds with survivability and damage. What are you going to do when your 1 tank/support cant keep agro since in dungeons the vast majority of enemies are fought in close spaces with AOE attacks? (Not to mention you cant just hit an enemy and keep them on you like classical MMOs)

I’m not sure I follow. If you’re saying 5 people in soldiers is better than having ranged DPS in berserker’s with a tank in soldiers, I’ll have to disagree.

Soban.3754:

Eviator.9746:

So far the responses are about 50/50. That it’s not 90/10 is a bummer. I was hoping that GW2 would be different. It’s not the trinity anymore, but many still think dedicated tanks are still needed, thus defensive plate wearers are believe

The trinity still exists, but heavy doesn’t matter. Thieves and Mesmers are actually very high tier PvE tanks, for example.

Sure the trinity still exits, the point was that any class can do any role. However there is no need to run in this method when each person can take care of themselves. You ‘lose’ a little damage output on 4 people to ‘gain’ the damage output of a 5th person not forced to spec into something.

As I said in my original response, you can do it both ways no issue, but in my groups we are way faster going balanced builds versus balanced parties.

Soban.3754:

Parisalchuk.9230:

4 Glass cannons sure, but not 5 people running builds with survivability and damage. What are you going to do when your 1 tank/support cant keep agro since in dungeons the vast majority of enemies are fought in close spaces with AOE attacks? (Not to mention you cant just hit an enemy and keep them on you like classical MMOs)

I’m not sure I follow. If you’re saying 5 people in soldiers is better than having ranged DPS in berserker’s with a tank in soldiers, I’ll have to disagree.

That is not at ALL what I am saying. Spec your equipment to your desire. You say its better to have specific roles for players so that your team is forced into set responsibilities. I 100% completely disagree with that. In all my dungeon runs when we run specific roles we waste so much time having to respec for a certain group or boss that has mechanics that we need to beat. Not to mention when you lose containment using classical trinity method you waste time either trying to regain containment, taking longer to kill due to kiting, or getting your dead off the ground. If you spec balanced builds you face non of those issues. Ill explain based on a simple math model. If you have your party of 5, and you have 5 points to distribute in support, tank, and DPS the classical model would look something like this:

1 Player with 5 in tank, 1 player with 5 in support, 3 players with distributed DPS.

WIth a balanced build approach you still have the same distribution to give but now everyone has 1 in everything. You dont lose and damage output, you dont lose any support and each class is capable of tanking at any given time. With the addition of dodge rolls this means you match the damage output of your speced builds, retain the same support and a person can tank for X amount of time, dodge roll out and a new character comes in.

So please, tell my why its better to run in a group which requires specific roles when you dont need to and will achieve the same end result in equal or better time.